Archaeologists from Arkeologerna have discovered a 1000-year-old Viking-era silver hoard in Viggbyholm, Täby, outside Stockholm.

Viking silver treasure discovered in Sweden. Credit: The Archaeologists

The discovery was made while excavating a Viking settlement in Täby, an area believed to have been inhabited for hundreds of years.

The remnants of more than 20 houses and buildings were discovered, with the earliest dating from around 400 AD and continuing into the Viking Age (800-1050 AD) and early Middle Ages.

The treasure was discovered beneath a wooden floor in a building. The coins were placed in a linen pouch, which had been put into a small ceramic pot together with the jewelry.

It is now unclear why the inhabitants chose to bury some of their most valuable objects. However, several theories exist.

“One common interpretation is that people hid and buried their treasures in difficult and tumultuous times. We have yet to see if that was the case here,” said archaeologist John Hamilton,

“When I started to carefully remove the neck rings one by one, I had this extraordinary feeling of “they just keep coming and coming”. In total there were eight high-quality torque-style neck rings, extraordinary well preserved despite having been made and deposited almost a thousand years ago. They looked almost completely new,” said Maria Lingström at The Archaeologists, National Historical Museums in Sweden.

“This is something you probably only experience once in a lifetime”, she added.